Taebaeksan 태백산 (Nohyeong-dong, Shin Jeju)

While exploring more of the hood, I stumbled upon a great Korean BBQ restaurant serving an awesome jeongsik (set meal) at lunch time for only 11,000 won. The main dishes include kalbi jjim (slow braised short ribs), dwenjang jjigae (soybean paste stew), okdom gui (fried tile fish), kimchi jjeon, ganjang gaejang (soy marinated raw crab) and a slew of other banchan side dishes.Having eaten kalbi jjim plenty of times, you generally have to pay a little more for good quality ribs that fall-off-the-bone and have a sauce that’s not just soy-sugar based. Thus, I was quite surprised when the kalbi jjim arrived, looking bigger, better, and badder than other places for a 2-person serving. What about the taste? It was spot on. The ribs were super tender from the long, slow braise (tendons/joints chewed without difficulty), and the sauce was one of those sauces where you hope you have enough rice so none of it goes to waste (yes, it was that good). The other dishes were also very well prepared and fresh.Since this is a Korean BBQ restaurant, I’ll definitely be back when I need my BBQ fix to try out their signature items: black pig five-layered pork belly 흑오겹살 and marinated grilled pork ribs 양념갈. If they can make kalbi jjim like they did that day, I’m sure they their BBQ is spectacular.There are three branches total, two in the Nohyeong-dong vicinity and one in Ara-dong, but each location seems to have their own little variation. I highly suggest you visit their 2nd branch (2 호점) next to the Tamra Library.

Update as of 11/5: My partner and I visited the restaurant over the weekend to try out their signature BBQ dishes. We ordered one serving of the spicy, marinated grilled pork ribs 항아리 매운 양념갈비 and one order of the non-spicy version. Simply put, both were awesome. Super tender, full of flavors, and most importantly (at least for me), a great dipping sauce to go along with it. I’m not sure how many times the ajumma had to refill my dipping sauce, but it was enough for her to just let me have the bucket to save her additional trips. And on the subject of service, the restaurant is by far one of the more friendly and hospitable places for BBQ dining. With a lot of BBQ joints, you sometimes have to yell across the room or ask several times for a refill. This didn’t happen on this particular visit. We never once had to call them over despite it being peak hours at dinner time. Needless to say, we were both very impressed and can’t wait to try out their other dishes in the future.

As a personal criteria when adding a restaurant to my list of 맛집s (“Tasty Restaurants”), I usually make at least a few visits to make sure it’s legit. Taebaeksan is legit.